Patriarchs and Profits

Chapter 5 - Thomas Conant

by Dirk Anderson

Thomas Jefferson Conant (1802–1891) was a Hebrew scholar and Bible translator. One of his most acclaimed works was The Book of Genesis (1868) — a book found in Ellen White's library. This book deals with translation choices, the meaning of Hebrew words, and places where the English translation fails to convey what the Hebrew says.

That makes Conant particularly important. A commentary like the Columbian Family Bible can supply a narrative idea or an interpretation that someone might arrive at independently. Conant supplies something much more specific: a particular conclusion about what a Hebrew word or phrase means. When that same conclusion appears in Patriarchs and Prophets — written by a woman with no training in Hebrew — it is difficult to explain as independent insight.

One myth popularized by SDA apologists suggests that Ellen White's interpretation of certain Bible passages indicates that she possessed supernatural knowledge of Hebrew. However, there is a far less miraculous explanation. She had a Hebrew scholar sitting on her bookshelf who had already done the heavy lifting for her.

Parallels with Conant

Five examples are provided below. Each is absent from White's 1864 Spiritual Gifts account, each appearing only after Conant's volume had entered her library.

1. Terah's Household: True Worship Mixed with Idolatry

Genesis 11:26–32 gives Terah's genealogy and tells us that the family left Ur and settled in Haran. It says nothing about idolatry in Terah's household. The only biblical passage that raises the question is Joshua 24:2, where Joshua says that Israel's fathers once “served other gods.” But Joshua does not tell us whether that idolatry belonged to Abraham's immediate family or to an earlier generation.

Conant chooses one side of that ambiguity and presents it as the explanation:

The true God continued to be acknowledged among the immediate ancestry of Abraham; and we are to understand Joshua 24:2, as meaning, that with this knowledge were connected idolatrous superstitions and practices.¹

Patriarchs and Prophets gives essentially the same interpretation:

Thus far his father's family accompanied him, for with their idolatry they united the worship of the true God.²

The point is not simply that both writers mention idolatry. Both resolve the same biblical ambiguity in the same way: Terah's household supposedly retained knowledge of the true God while practicing idolatry alongside it. Genesis never says this. Joshua 24:2 does not require it. Conant supplies the interpretation, and Patriarchs and Prophets presents the same interpretation as historical fact.

There is also chronological evidence. Ellen White's 1864 account says only that Abraham was called out of “his idolatrous nation.”³ It says nothing about idolatry within his father's household. That specific detail appears in 1890 — after Conant's The Book of Genesis had entered her library.

The Hebrew scholar provides the interpretation; the prophetess provides the certainty.

2. Nahor Stayed in Haran

Genesis 12:1 records God's command to Abram: leave his country, his kindred, and his father's house. But Genesis never tells us where Nahor, Abram's brother, went. His absence from the journey to Canaan is simply unexplained.

Conant reconstructs the answer by comparing several later passages:

“Nahor either preceded or followed them as far as Haran, and remained there. This is evident from ch. 24:10, 29, and 27:43; a comparison of the last two passages showing that ‘the city of Nahor,’ mentioned in the first, was Haran.”⁴

Conant shows the reader how he arrives at Haran. Patriarchs and Prophets gives the same conclusion as established history:

“Here [Haran] Abraham remained till the death of Terah. But from his father’s grave the divine Voice bade him go forward. His brother Nahor with his household clung to their home...⁵

Genesis never says that Nahor remained in Haran. The conclusion must be reconstructed from the later references — precisely the work Conant had already done. White simply presents the reconstruction as fact.

And the chronology is significant. Ellen White's 1864 account says nothing about Nahor. The detail appears for the first time in 1890, after Conant's 1868 book was available to her.

3. Mahanaim: Two Hosts, or Two Camps

Genesis 32:1–2 records that Jacob met the angels of God and named the place Mahanaim. The name means “two camps” or “two hosts,” but Genesis does not explain what the two camps represented or why the angels were encamped around Jacob.

Conant supplies both the Hebrew rendering and the explanation:

Mahanaim; meaning, two camps (or, two hosts), that of the angels encamping near him for his protection, and his own.⁶

Patriarchs and Prophets gives the same interpretation, including the same parenthetical gloss:

Two hosts of heavenly angels seemed to encompass him behind and before…as if for their protection…Mahanaim — ‘two hosts, or, camps.’⁷

What is remarkable is the combination: the same translation of the Hebrew name and the same explanation of what the two hosts represented. Conant says one camp was Jacob’s and the other was the angels encamped near him for his protection. Patriarchs and Prophets presents the same picture. And in 1864, Ellen White gave no explanation of Mahanaim at all.

This is not merely a similar interpretation. Conant explains the Hebrew; White reproduces the explanation.

4. The Coat: A Mark of Rank, Not of Color

Every reader of the KJV knows Joseph’s “coat of many colours” (Gen. 37:3). But the Hebrew phrase behind that translation, k’thoneth passim, is disputed. Some scholars understand it as a garment distinguished by color or pattern; others understand it as an unusually long garment. Conant takes the latter position and explains what made Joseph’s coat distinctive:

A full length garment; covering the whole person, the body of the garment extending to the feet, and the sleeves to the wrists. Such garments were worn only by persons exempted from manual labor, and were indicative of rank and wealth. The injudicious partiality of Jacob conferred this distinction on the favorite child of his old age. On the contrary, the ordinary dress… extended but a little below the knee, the sleeves reaching only to the elbow.⁸

Patriarchs and Prophets abandons the familiar “many colours” description and gives essentially the same interpretation:

The father’s injudicious gift to Joseph of a costly coat, or tunic, such as was usually worn by persons of distinction, seemed to them another evidence of his partiality.⁹

The chronology makes this especially interesting. In Spiritual Gifts (1864), Ellen White herself called it a “coat of many colors.”¹⁰ By 1890, however, the colors have disappeared. So has the ordinary English description. What replaces them is the interpretation found in Conant: Joseph’s garment was costly, distinctive, and associated with social rank. Conant says it was worn by persons “exempted from manual labor” and was “indicative of rank and wealth.” White calls it a garment “usually worn by persons of distinction.”

The Hebrew scholar changes the coat; the prophetess follows the change.

5. Who Actually Sold Joseph?

Genesis 37:28 contains a genuine textual difficulty. The King James Version reads:

Then there passed by Midianites merchantmen; and they drew and lifted up Joseph out of the pit, and sold him to the Ishmeelites.

That creates an obvious question: Who actually pulled Joseph from the pit and sold him? The grammar has been debated for centuries. The verse appears to make the Midianites the ones who drew Joseph out and sold him to the Ishmaelites. Yet Joseph later tells his brothers, “ye sold me hither” (Gen. 45:5), which points in the opposite direction.

Conant examines the difficulty and explicitly argues that the “they” who drew Joseph from the pit and sold him were his brothers, not the Midianites:

Judah…proposes to spare his life, and sell him to the Ishmaelites…There is hardly room for doubt, that by the subject of the second and third [clauses] — ‘they drew,’ ‘they sold’ — are meant the brothers of Joseph…[not] the Midianites…Compare Judah's proposal…and Joseph's statement, ch. 45:5, ‘ye sold me hither.’¹¹

Patriarchs and Prophets adopts the same solution:

Judah now proposed to sell their brother to these heathen traders…To this proposition all agreed, and Joseph was quickly drawn out of the pit.¹²

The chronology makes this particularly difficult to explain as coincidence. In 1864, Ellen White follows the KJV account and has the Midianites involved in drawing Joseph from the pit and selling him, quoting Genesis 37:26–28 nearly verbatim.¹³ But in 1890, the Midianites have disappeared from the transaction. Without the Midianites in the scene, it is now inferred that Joseph's own brothers draw him from the pit and sell him directly to the Ishmaelites — the very interpretation Conant had argued for in 1868.

This is more than a shared interpretation. White changed her account to match the Hebrew scholar's solution to a disputed text.

Conclusion

These are five places where White knows the very thing the Hebrew scholar had worked out. The ordinary English text leaves the question open, obscures the meaning, or points the reader in another direction. Conant works through the problem. His solution resolves a difficulty that requires specialized Hebrew knowledge or careful cross-referencing. In every case, Patriarchs and Prophets arrives at the same solution.

The chronology helps identify Conant as the source of White's Hebrew knowledge. White’s 1864 account lacks these details. Conant’s book appeared in 1868. The expanded details appear in Patriarchs and Prophets in 1890. The Hebrew answers were not in White’s earlier account. They appear after the Hebrew scholar enters the story.